Category: News Alerts

Please be aware that for the next six weeks, Oshawa Power is undertaking a Customer Satisfaction Survey as part of our electricity distributor scorecards. The survey will take approximately five minutes to complete and will cover topics related to billing, power outages and more.  To establish the required sample of participants basic demographic information will be requested however please take note that we will not be asking for any identifying information such as hydro account number, home address, and credit card or banking information.

Utility Pulse, on behalf of Oshawa Power, will be carrying out the survey via telephone. If you receive a call, please consider participating. Your responses will help us improve the customer experience to Oshawa residents.

Results from the survey will be included in Oshawa Power’s next annual scorecard.  Should you have any questions please contact our office by phone at 905-723-4623 or by emailing us here and we will be happy to help you.

To see Oshawa Power’s past scorecards visit Oshawa Power’s Regulatory Affairs page and for more information on Electricity Distributor Scorecards, visit the Ontario Energy Board.

Oshawa Power is also conducting an online 6-part Cost of Service Survey. Customers can participate in the development process of our upcoming Rate Application. We will be releasing 6 individual surveys each targeting different areas of the business. We will use your thoughtful answers to prioritize our Capital investment plan to ensure that we meet and exceed your expectations. To participate in the first survey click here.

Oshawa, ON – Oshawa is experiencing a long heat wave that is increasing the electricity demand on the grid. So far this month we have seen an increase of 10% electricity demand over the same time period last year.  During times of extreme heat overall usage climbs due to air conditioners, dehumidifiers, and pools.  Conversely, our refrigerators and freezers work harder to maintain cooler temperatures.  As a result, Oshawa Power is preparing all residential and commercial customers to expect higher than normal bills.

Oshawa Power is sharing these tips to help keep your bills lower:

• Check your account online and monitor your usage daily – don’t wait until your next bill to find out how much electricity you have used, find out now and make changes if necessary https://ecareets.opuc.on.ca/myDSM/login.asp
• Instead of using a clothes dryer – hang your clothing outside
• Close your blinds or curtains to keep out the sun’s heat
• Instead of using your air conditioner, open your windows and turn on your bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans to circulate the air
• Use a programmable thermostat, or turn the temperature up on your central air system when you are away from home
• Turn on any ceiling fans or portable fans for air circulation
• Use a timer on your pool pump and run in the off peak times
• Don’t stand in front of an open fridge looking for a snack, try to keep the cool air in

Not finding relief at home from the heat?

Visit public places like a mall, recreation facilities, public libraries or Oshawa Senior Citizen branches to cool down.

Need help paying your bill?

Oshawa Power is available to assist you in managing your bill.  Please visit http://www.oshawapower.ca/need-help-paying-electricity-bill/ to learn more or reach out to Oshawa Power at 905-723-4623 to discuss your options.

Venturing outside?

Remember these heat safety tips:

• Consider spending the hottest part of the day in public buildings that have air conditioning
• Stay hydrated! Keep cool drinks with you while outside or in the car, if you are travelling
• Cool down in the shade or cooling centres. If you’re at a pool, take a dip to cool off.
• Be aware of the weather forecast, heat alerts and air quality reports
• Don’t forget your sunscreen!
• Check on vulnerable family members or neighbours to make sure they are ok
• NEVER leave your children or pets in a parked car

Be prepared.

During times of extreme weather and demand additional strain is added to the grid.  As a result, the number of power outages can increase.  Oshawa Power will continue to work as quickly as possible to keep the power on for their customers.  Be prepared with an emergency items on hand including flashlights, radio, first aid, batteries, water, sunscreen, and food.  Learn more here: https://www.oshawa.ca/residents/develop-an-emergency-kit.asp

If you like to learn more about conservation or more safety tips please visit

www.oshawapower.ca/conservation

www.oshawapower.ca/safety-and-outages/

About Oshawa Power:

Part of the Oshawa Power & Utilities Corporation (OPUC) family of companies, Oshawa Power provides safe, reliable, and efficient electricity distribution services to over 58,000 customers within the City of Oshawa. Our company is an active member of the Oshawa community that continuously pursues innovative opportunities and solutions that deliver quality service, safety and low customer rates.  Oshawa Power is the recipient of a number of awards including the 2017 Electricity Distributors Association’s (EDA) Environmental Excellence Award, Hexagon SI’s Innovation Award in Infrastructure and the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association’s (IHSA) Certificate of Recognition (COR™) for three years standing.

To learn more about Oshawa Power or the OPUC family of companies please visit www.oshawapower.ca, follow us on Twitter @oshawapower or visit us on Facebook /oshawapower.

The OPUC Annual General Meeting will be held on, Thursday, June 7th, 2018 at 10:00am. The location of the AGM has been provided below.

Location:
The Oshawa Convention Centre
67 Simcoe ST. North
Oshawa, ON

Oshawa Power strives to bring the best customer service to our customers.  As we plan and improve the overall customer service currently offered we would like to hear from you about your experience.  We actively use feedback to constantly improve our delivery and provide you with the best possible service.  So we can provide you an even better experience we are collecting feedback on how we performed in your contact with us.

Oshawa Power has introduced a Customer Service Satisfaction (CSAT) survey that integrates with our telephone system.  In your next phone call to us you will be offered an opportunity to answer a quick 2 question survey at the end of the call which provides us immediate feedback.  Your feedback will let us know areas that we are excelling and areas that we need development.  We encourage you to use this service and help us to deliver the best customer service.

Thank you

Oshawa Power

Customer Service Team

Oshawa Power is proud to be this year’s winner of Hexagon SI’s 2018 Safety and Infrastructure’s Innovation Award for our Outage Management system.

Oshawa Power’s Outage Management System connects existing utility technology AMI, SCADA, CIS and GIS to identify outages, predict outages,  and communicate outages.  With the focus on improving reliability, reducing outage times and improving customer communications our team along with Hexagon’s collaborated together to provide the customers of Oshawa with better service and reliability.  Part of this project is deploying Intelligent Switches, sectionalizing areas with defective equipment and restoring as many customers in many cases before 1 minute.  Oshawa Power uses real data from AMI meter outage messages (outage/restore) timestamps as our benchmark for when the outage starts and ends.

This is a significant achievement, crew response time improved, dramatic increases in our reliability, notification from our OMS was accurate, and communicating the outages to our outage map, IVR system and social media was seamless all as a result of good engineering and system network analysis.

In 2017 we sent out approximately 250 tweets with power outage details and our social media audience grew 27% and 18% for Facebook and Twitter respectively as a result of informative outage notification posts.   The predictive dialer called 42,000 customers in 2017 to inform them of power outages in their area.

Historically only 5%-10% of total outages would be planned.  Planned outages are mainly to perform infrastructure maintenance and preventative upgrades to avoid any unplanned outages.  Planned outages are preferred as the utility can plan their resources in a more efficient manner and the outage duration is kept to a minimum.  Unplanned outages are time consuming as crews with the assistance of Operations have to patrol first to identify location and cause of the outage before being able to repair.  In 2017 with the OMS fully functional we reported to have 61% planned outages and with the accuracy of the system unplanned outage duration was drastically reduced with the elimination of patrolling since the system can direct the crews to the device causing the outage.

These achievements were not done by investing in new technology platforms but by utilizing existing platforms and resources available and make them work for us to improve service and reliability for the customers of Oshawa.   Currently we are the only utility that automatically dispatches crews based on the OMS without the involvement of an operator.  This allows us to deliver more to our customers for the same cost. Oshawa Power is proud to be leading the industry with forward-thinking, customer-focused approaches!

About Hexagon

Hexagon is a leading global provider of information technologies that drive productivity and quality across geospatial and industrial enterprise applications.  Hexagon’s solutions integrate sensors, software, domain knowledge and customer workflows into intelligent information ecosystems that deliver actionable information. They are used in a broad range of vital industries.

 

Some customers affected by billing delay

Please be advised, electricity invoices for customers who normally receive their monthly bills between the 16th and 31st will be delayed for January.  We fully expect to have the situation remedied very soon and all January bills are expected to be delivered no later than February 8th.  Affected customers will receive invoices for only the delayed billing period however, due to the delay, some of those customers may receive two invoices in the month of February. Overdue service charges will be waived and there will be no interruption of service resulting for a period of time to accommodate the billing delays. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Oshawa residents will soon have the opportunity to choose different programs and billing options for their electricity after the Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation was chosen to be part of a new pilot project from the Ontario Energy Board.

The OPUC, along with providers in Barrie, York Region and London, representing approximately 18,000 customers, will have new options for tailoring hydro billing programs to customers. The new program are likened to the “pick and pay” options now available for some television cable packages.

“We’re excited by it, it was a competitive process to sort of win the favour of the Ontario Energy Board to actually do these trials,” says Ivano Labricciosa, the president and CEO of the OPUC.

Aiming to start in the spring of 2018, Labricciosa says Oshawa residents will have the option to sign up for a pair of pick and pay programs. The first, labelled as a seasonal time of use program will allow residents to have two time-of-use (TOU) periods in the summer and winter while paying a flat rate in spring and fall, or a super peak time of use program which allows for a simplified two-price plan combined with a “super peak” period on weekday afternoons.

For Labricciosa, the new programs offer the opportunity for residents to find a program that suits their lifestyle.

“No one is going to change their lifestyle to shoehorn in a plan, I like to think this is the other way around,” he says. “It’s us figuring out what plan works best for you and helps you develop an envelope.”

Currently, the OPUC is looking for 2,000 customers to sign up for the pilot program, following which they will analyze existing information to see if the household is a good fit.

“We’re trying to use the intelligence to figure out how people are using energy, whether these prospective price plans, or other ones, will be better for them in meeting the customer needs,” Labricciosa says, noting that right now, it’s unclear how affective the programs will be in terms of savings. “It’s a trial, so much like anything else, nobody knows the answers yet. We’re trying to get people to participate, it’s kind of a no-risk trial.”

The OPUC advises that they will be posting further information once it becomes available on their website and state that Oshawa residents interested in taking part in the program can call OPUC customer service at 905-723-4623.

As early as the end of June 2016, your mail delivery may be interrupted or delayed by a possible labour disruption at Canada Post.  While this labour disruption may be delayed or avoided at any time, here are some important things to keep in mind as it pertains to your Oshawa PUC Networks bill:

1. You are still responsible for paying your bill by the payment due date. To avoid potential late payment charges, make the switch to eBilling to receive your monthly bill by email notification when your bill is ready.  Visit http://opuc.on.ca/residential/ebill/

2. Even though your bill won’t be delivered by mail, you can still login to download or print a PDF copy of your bill at any time at https://ecareets.opuc.on.ca/myDSM/login.asp

3. Because Canada Post will not be making deliveries during a labour disruption, we will be unable to accept payment by mail. For payment options visit http://opuc.on.ca/residential/bill-information/payment-options/.  This same information can be found on the back of your electricity bill under Payment Methods.